Pavel Rozenko, Ukraine’s social policy minister, says that the number of internally-displaced Ukrainians as a result of Russian aggression in Crimea and the Donbas has reached 1,483,000 – or roughly three percent of Ukraine’s population and a figure many times worse than the number of IDPs as a result of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

While Ukrainian refugees in the Russian Federation have attracted much international attention thanks to the efforts of the Moscow media, Ukrainian IDPs have not. Indeed, they are among the forgotten victims of this conflict.

But both the human tragedies of Ukrainians forced to flee from their homes as a result of Russian aggression and the cost of coping with their flight – Kyiv has already spent $100 million US dollars to help – should not be forgotten, especially at a time when some are celebrating the current lull in the fighting as a turn toward peace.

Edited by: A. N.

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About the Source

Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. He has served as director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn, and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. Earlier he has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Euromaidan Press republishes the work of Paul Goble with permission from his blog Windows on Eurasia.

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